Saturday, December 24, 2016

Over a month after the conclusion of the 2016 presidential election, politicians and unnamed sources quote in various media outlets continue to raise the spectre of Russian interference in the elections.

As TIME pointed out last week, this is a fear that goes back to the time of America's Founding Fathers, with Alexander Hamilton, for instance, concerned about, "the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils."

Yet, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out throughout the controversy, there is not yet any substantive evidence that has been brought to public attention, proving or strongly evidencing Russian interference in the election:

"To begin with, this is a second-hand report so you have somebody whose identity is being shielded describing what the CIA supposedly concluded, laundering that through the Washington Post. These are assertions that are being made completely unaccompanied by any evidence whatsoever, let alone evidence that we can touch and rationally review.

There’s all kind of reasons to suspect the CIA statements, including the fact that they’re wrong all the time, they’re programmed in a lot of cases to disseminate disinformation and there’s lots of reasons to view them as political actors.”

But if it turns out to be true that Russia had interfered in the US election, it would be just one more good reason for the United States foreign policy establishment to reconsider its heavy-handed intervention in overseas affairs, because it would be an example of what the CIA calls "blowback."

The United States has a storied record of interference in foreign elections, and while that does not justify foreign intervention in our elections, it does legitimize it as a geopolitical tactic, endangering the integrity of our own democratic process.

Friday, December 2, 2016

President-designate Donald Trump named his Secretary of Health and Human Services this week, picking Rep. Tom Price, a conservative Republican congressman from Georgia and a former practicing orthopedic surgeon of twenty years.

"Chairman Price, a renowned physician, has earned a reputation for being a tireless problem solver and the go-to expert on healthcare policy, making him the ideal choice to serve in this capacity," Trump said in making the announcement official early Tuesday.